OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Monday
AN attempted coup d’etat was underway early on Monday in the Ivory Coast, with heavy fighting wracking the countrys economic capital as loyalist forces attempted to overpower mutinous troops who had seized the television station.
No toll from the fighting is immediately available and the situation on the ground remains confused. It is not possible to say which strategic points are in the hands of which forces.
Sources said President Laurent Gbagbo had left Abidjan on Friday for an unspecified destination in the interior of Ivory Coast after hearing reports that a coup was in the making.
Still-unidentified assailants who attacked key installations in Abidjan late Sunday managed to take over the television and radio buildings. They broadcast a message calling on their “brothers in arms” to join them, saying a spokesman would address the people within “the next few hours.”
Defence Minister Moise Lida Kouassi said that the attacks by armed assailants had been quashed “on all fronts except the television building”. Journalists said automatic gunfire, heavy machine guns and even artillery was heard for more than 15 minutes around the building in the Cocody residential district.
The fighting started at around 11:30pm on Sunday, and television and radio broadcasts were cut off shortly afterwards.
Automatic gunfire and artillery was also heard around Abidjan’s main gendarmerie headquarters, Camp Agban, on the edge of the working-class Adjame district.
Lida Kouassi told journalists the attack had been carried out by “elements in plain clothes” who had arrived in unmarked vehicles. He described the situation as “still a bit dangerous” but said it would be “under control by the morning”.
Lida Kouassi said an assault on the presidential palace had been repulsed by republican guard elite troops. He would not speculate on who was behind the coup, saying: “I was told that among the attackers was one of the people who had moved in against the residence of [Robert] Guei.”
The residence of Guei, head of the military junta that ruled Ivory Coast from December 1999 to October 2000, was reportedly the target of an attack by followers of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara on the night of September 17 2000.
The former numbers two and three in the junta, Generals Lassana Palenfo and Abdoulaye Coulibaly, had been accused by General Guei of having ordered the attack, a charge they have always denied. The two are still in detention. – AFP